Wedge Salad Recipe

The Return Of The Greatest Salad Of All Time

Unfortunately, like so many dishes from the 60s it went out of fashion for a while, particularly as new and more “exotic” salad leaves appeared that made the iceberg lettuce look rather plain by comparison.

There is something about the simple wedge salad that has always appealed to me.

I first encountered it during a meal at a steakhouse chain in the mid 1970s, and after one bite of the crisp iceberg lettuce topped with creamy blue cheese dressing and chunks of bacon, I was hooked. I’ve looked for it as my choice of appetiser at countless steakhouse meals in the 30-plus years since then.

Unlike some salads (e.g. the Waldorf and the Caesar) there are no restaurants that lay claim to creating this particular dish. However, by the middle of the 1950s and well into the 1960s it was almost ubiquitous on menus throughout the United States.

Unfortunately, like so many dishes from the 60s it went out of fashion for a while, particularly as new and more “exotic” salad leaves appeared that made the iceberg lettuce look rather plain by comparison. However, I am delighted to see that, in recent years, the wedge salad has begun to make a serious comeback. A new generation of diners is waking up to the fact that a salad that needs only four or five ingredients to prepare can be just as glorious as one that has dozens.

It’s easy to understand why. The combination of fresh, crunchy iceberg lettuce with the salt of a great blue cheese and the bite of bacon is the perfect way to wake up the appetite before attacking a large slice of dead cow.

There are lots of new takes on the original recipe, using different cheeses, different dressings and even different leaves. But to understand why this salad became one of the most popular restaurant appetisers for well over a decade, you have to go back to the original.

For the salad:

1 head of fresh iceberg lettuce (any leaves that are beginning to brown removed) 4 slices of thick-cut bacon. (Cut into thin batons. I like to use smoked bacon, but regular is fine too.)4 chives (finely sliced)